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A Political Animal

A Political Animal is a participative novel. Make any suggestions you like. I will consider them.

The novel itself remains my property. I will add to it and update it over time.

John

Chapter 1 – Into Exile

It is the year 29 and I am too old to go into exile again.My back legs are arthritic, although my children unkindly say it is gout, not arthritis.My eyes are rheumy.My stomach rebels against food.

Perhaps they are right.I have drunk too much in my life; too much.Beer with Drambuie chasers became Drambuie with beer chasers.

Morning relief was when the spirits chased the demons and smoothed the unsteady waters of the guts. The shaking hand righted itself after time.

Sweet nectar of the mind!It can engulf us all. And destroy us.

But I am not destroyed; just approaching the time of no time.

The Old Man would pat me and tell me how ageing is part of the dialectic of nature but I could not agree. I want to live to see the sweet sun of a new society.I know it is not to be as he prepares again to leave, this time from the citadel, thrown out and reviled.

And yet just 12 years before…

I need another drink to continue.Can you pour me one?

Thanks.

Don’t look pityingly at me!

Why wouldn’t I drink?The Old Man has had much joy and sorry in his life.His life is mine – the walks, the talks, the discussions about tactics, philosophy, history, current events.

I have been his partner in this adventure.And now mine is ending, while his will continue.

From where I lie, you can see the clouds outside – relentless, cold, merciless rain is driving its way into our hearts.

Always there is thick cloud in this valley of the unbelievers.

The Old Man laughs when I complain about the rain. He tells the same joke, stolen from some wild man many years ago.Everyone complains about the weather but no one does anything about it. Boom boom.

I think he was admonishing me.Of course I know this is humanity’s great challenge – to live with and over nature. But the backwardness of this planet makes such a dream seem like a psychotic delusion.

Then one day he made a comment trivial and profound.Leo, you must understand that every cloud has a silver lining.

I thought about this for a while.It was true and indeed might reflect his very approach to society and politics. It was, as the Old Man would say, another Karlism.